Japan may review WWII study on sex slavery: gov't

TOKYO -- Japan's government said Thursday it may re-examine a 20-year-old study that led to a landmark apology over forced prostitution during World War II, in a sign it is leaning toward a denial that officials were involved in organizing sex slavery.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, the official government spokesman, said it may decide to verify the accuracy of interviews with 16 South Korean women who said they were forced to serve as prostitutes for Japan's wartime military.

Although numbers vary, some historians say as many as 200,000 women from across Asia, most of them Koreans, were forced to serve as sex slaves, called “comfort women” in Japan, for frontline soldiers.